OK I have been collecting media files for ages and have: 2 compaq small form factor boxes, one freebsd and one linux, each with a 300G hard drive for videos. (PATA)
2 external usb hard drives with 300 SATA and 250G PATA respectively. (each has a brick power supply) 1 mythtv backend box in a tower with a 1TB SATA drive (for tv) and a 750G SATA drive (for videos and music) These plus a cable modem and router under the stairs contribute significantly to global warming and power consumption. I'd like to rationalise this, particularly the 2 compaq boxes and the external drives. The mythtv box I will pretty well leave alone, its working and the one mantra about mythtv is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I am wondering about turnkey NAS systems, maybe something to hold everything that's not in the myth backend box. Ignoring the operating systems that's about (300+300+300+250 = 1.15T) - so to allow headroom and avoid the same problem again later I figure something with 2-4TB would be needed. But that'll cost quite a bit I imagine, and then I'll have all those drives left over and nothing in particular to do with them unless I foolishly start down the same track again... OTOH I could resurrect a tower from the garage with an IDE motherboard, get a PCI SATA card and shove all those drives in one box, and maybe a couple more besides. Anyone got any suggestions to restore sanity to all this?
